Donald Trump Deposition at Mar-a-Lago as He’s Asked Questions Under Oath

MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images Former US President Donald Trump speaks at the America First Policy Institute Agenda Summit in Washington, DC, on July 26, 2022. Trump is scheduled to be deposed in a defamation case brought by a woman who claims he raped her in the 1990s.

Donald Trump is set to appear at a deposition hearing as part of a long-running defamation case relating to a woman who alleges the former president raped her in the 1990s.

Earlier this month, New York District judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to answer questions under oath in relation to the claims made by magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll.

Carroll said that the former president smeared her character when he denied allegations he raped her at a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s. Carroll filed her suit in 2019, with Trump's legal team spending three years fighting the case.

Trump Ordered To Testify In E. Jean Carroll Rape Defamation Case

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Trump is now expected to sit for the deposition at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Wednesday.

Carroll sued Trump for defamation in November 2019, claiming that he defamed her character when he denied the allegations that he raped her in a dressing room of the New York City department store.

The suit said that Trump accused Carroll of lying about the alleged assault to sell books and "make money" as well as falsely suggest she made up other rapes. It argued that the former president also publicly mocked her appearance.

Trump denied the rape claims, telling The Hill in 2019 "she's not my type."

The former president also said he had never met Carroll. In June 2019, New York Magazine published an excerpt from Carroll's book What Do We Need Men For? which detailed the allegation and featured a photo of Carroll, Trump, his then-wife Ivana Trump, and Carroll's then-husband at an NBC party around 1987.

A deposition hearing is a sworn question-and-answer session, in which people must testify under oath outside of a courtroom session.

The hearings are an opportunity for parties in a civil lawsuit to obtain testimony from a witness prior to trial. It is part of the discovery process by which parties from all sides can gather relevant information before presenting their cases.

If someone subjected to a deposition refuses to attend, they could be found in contempt of court. Providing false statements during a deposition hearing could also result in perjury charges.

However, a client may also invoke their fifth amendment right to avoid self-incrimination during their deposition hearing and refuse to answer questions fully.

Since the suit was filed in September 2019, Trump has denied the allegations and has repeatedly sought to dismiss and delay the proceedings.

Trump's legal team previously asked the courts to delay the deposition hearing until a separate defamation lawsuit by former The Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos was settled.

A New York State Supreme Court eventually rejected Trump's request in August 2020. Zervos, who also accused the former president of sexual assault, dropped her suit in November 2021.

In 2020, the Trump administration also sought to have the United States government replace the then-president as the defendant in the Carroll case, with the Department of Justice arguing that Trump was acting within the scope of a federal employee when he denied the allegations from the writer.

Judge Kaplan rejected that attempt for the DOJ to intervene in the case.

Trump's attorney Alina Habba argued last month that the deposition should be delayed while the question of whether Trump was acting as a federal employee while denying Carroll's allegations was considered on appeal. Kaplan once again rejected Trump's legal team's attempts to have the deposition delayed.

"As the Court noted in an earlier opinion in this case, 'defendant's litigation tactics have had a dilatory effect and, indeed, strongly suggest that he is acting out of a strong desire to delay any opportunity plaintiff may have to present her case against him,'" Kaplan wrote in his ruling.

"The defendant should not be permitted to run the clock out on plaintiff's attempt to gain a remedy for what allegedly was a serious wrong."

Trump continues to deny the allegations.

In a lengthy October 12 statement, the former president dismissed the evidence that he knew who Carroll was while once again suggesting his accuser is "not my type."

"I don't know this woman, have no idea who she is, other than it seems she got a picture of me many years ago, with her husband, shaking my hand on a reception line at a celebrity charity event. She completely made up a story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City Department Store and, within minutes, 'swooned' her," Trump said.

"It is a Hoax and a lie, just like all the other Hoaxes that have been played on me for the past seven years. And, while I am not supposed to say it, I will. This woman is not my type!"

Trump added that he is prepared to go through "years more of legal nonsense" in order to "clear my name of her and her lawyer's phony attacks on me."

There is currently a routine order allowing both Trump and Carroll to keep their depositions confidential throughout the pretrial discovery process, meaning details of the line of questioning will almost certainly not be known at this time.

Despite the update to one of many of Trump's legal battles taking place just weeks ahead of the November 8 midterms elections, Thomas Gift, founding director of University College London's Centre on US Politics, said Trump's deposition will not influence the outcome of election results or damage the former president's reputation.

"Regardless of whether Trump decides to answer questionsand my inclination is he won'tthe political implications of the hearing are likely to be minimal," Gift told Newsweek.

"Trump has been rocked by so many scandals and allegations of wrongdoing that almost every single case now tends to get lost in the haze. If anything, being hauled in to offer testimony gives Trump another opportunity to claim he's the victim herethe target of a systematic, Democrat-led witch hunt designed to take him down by any means necessary.

"If January 6, Ukraine, Russia-gate, and the multitude of other charges against Trump didn't budge his favorabilities among the right-wing base, this case most certainly won't move the needle," Gift added.

Newsweek reached out to Trump's legal team for comment.

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Donald Trump Deposition at Mar-a-Lago as He's Asked Questions Under Oath